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Craptastic Movie Night: House of Wax

Back in June I wrote about my first Craptastic Movie Night when I watched the 2009 version of My Bloody Valentine, starring Jamie King and Jensen Ackles. The movie turned out to be a great mix of horror movie camp, gratuitous slasher flick gore, and a fun twist at the end. It also kind of felt like I was watching an episode of Supernatural…especially given some “new developments” (I’m avoiding spoilers here) in Dean’s story arc, this really felt like it could be an episode of Supernatural.

So I felt it was only fair that, for my next Craptastic Movie Night post, I would focus on a Jared Padalecki horror movie. As it would turn out, Cry_Wolf and House of Wax were available On Demand. I hadn’t seen Cry_Wolf before, and House of Wax is one of my craptastic faves, so of course I watched both. As it would turn out, Cry_Wolf is really just My New School Is Full of Jerks and Psychos: The Movie.

I had heard the movie called “a slasher”, but there was a surprisingly small amount of “slashing” in the film. There was some Jon Bon Jovi, though, so that’s something.

Anyway, I quickly moved on to watching House of Wax. As I said before, it’s one of my faves in the realm of craptastic horror films. It has everything I look for when I need some craptastic horror. [spoilers ahead]

1. The plot is fully outrageous.

A group of teenagers encounter car trouble on the way to a football game, and find a strange, nearby town made completely of wax. They try to get help from one of the locals, Bo, and are instead thrust into a hellish nightmare. It turns out Bo and his twin, Vincent, like to capture those who pass through the town, kill them, and turn them into one of their wax exhibits.

RIP, Wade.

2. The bad guys are fully outrageous.

Bo and Vincent are not just regular twins. No, they are formerly conjoined twins. While Bo didn’t get any physical deformities in the separation surgery…

*wistfully looks at the gas prices*

…he’s murderously insane, for some reason. Vincent, on the other hand, lost a significant portion of his skull in the surgery. To hide his physical deformities, his father decided it would probably best to just cover his son’s entire face in wax. Because that will certainly help him make friends and influence people.

Vincent may do most of Bo’s dirty work, but he’s really just a misunderstood wax artist at heart. Just a big, waxy sweetheart, really. What’s even better is the movie parallels the good twin/evil twin with the movie’s protagonists, Carly and Nick. There is far less wax between the two of them, however.

3. The gore is fabulous.

If you’ll recall in the My Bloody Valentine post, I mentioned but did not show a picture of an instance where a guy took a pickaxe to the back of his head, causing his eye to pop out of its socket. I’m gonna do the same thing here. This movie has some truly shiver-inducing moments, but the one that will always stick with me is when Wade is discovered by his group of friends. After being administered a paralyzing drug and covered head-to-toe in burning hot wax, Wade is kinda stuck where Vincent placed him in the “exhibit”. When his friend, Dalton, finds him and realizes Wade is still alive, Dalton panics and tries to “get this stuff off”, by picking at Wade’s face. While Dalton does remove some of the wax, he also removes an actual layer of skin from Wade’s cheek, which causes him to panic some more, and rip off even more skin. It ends up that Dalton rips a significant portion of the right side of Wade’s face (teeth fully exposed and everything)–and remember, Wade’s still alive for all of this, he just can’t move or speak.

Sorry, bro…

The gore game is strong with this movie. So like I said, I’m not gonna post pictures of the gore, but you can Google it if you want to see it; it’s not hard to find.

4. So. Much. horror movie logic!!!

A creepy, old building made fully out of wax in a sketchy tiny, secluded town? You bet he’s going in there!

5. Paris Hilton.

In a magical world before things like Paris Hilton’s My New BFF and The Hottie & the Nottie, but during her The Simple Life era,there was her brief appearance on House of Wax. In the movie she wears a light blue, velvet track suit, does a strip tease for her boyfriend, and dies in her underwear. The 00’s were a different time, kids…

This movie is one of my favorites, and I watch it every time it’s on television or available On Demand. It’s campy, it’s gross, and it legitimately freaks me out at times (campy gore or not, the cheek thing with Wade always gives me the shivers). This movie is craptastic horror at its finest. And now to play us out, please enjoy this behind-the-scenes featurette on the movie, where they actually talk about what they did to film Jared Padalecki’s cringe-worthy death scene (it starts about 3:18).

11 thoughts on “Craptastic Movie Night: House of Wax”

Great Craptastic Night indeed, House of Way is so OTT, with some really gross out gore, that its so bad you kinda hafta keep watching it if its on TV, which is how I first saw it when I was channel zapping one evening. Great behind the scenes clip as well!